Category / (Not a Cidu)

by phsiii

It’s a miracle!

JMcAndrew sends a set of related cartoons:

The last two are obviously just different versions of the same joke from the same cartoonist, even if they’re 14 1/2 years apart. I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing or not.

These all remind me of an axiom I was taught long ago as a relationship test: Have lunch at your prospective partner’s house and ask for mayonnaise. If they present Miracle Whip–especially if they aren’t even apologetic about it–RUN.

Miracle Whip is to mayonnaise as carob is to chocolate. As someone else once wrote, “Carob is not an acceptable substitute for chocolate. It is not an acceptable substitute for anything except, perhaps, brown shoe polish.”

by zbicyclist

CIDU’s Swimsuit Issue

It’s May 2, the average day of the last frost here in lovely northern Illinois.

Pools and beaches aren’t open yet, but JMcAndrew sends in some Hi and Lois swimsuit comics to get us in the mood: “Here are several Hi and Lois comics about swimsuits, some of which are just very bizarre. It’s apparently been a theme since the very early days of the comic.”

by zbicyclist

Time Warp

We’ve de-emphasized synchronicities, but Dirk the Daring sends this one in that’s too odd not to post.

These are the same joke showing up as vintage Comics Kingdom on the same day, but the original Barney Google and Snuffy Smith is from November 15, 1938, and the original Beetle Bailey is from October 9, 1956, leading Dirk to note “Given the coincidence, it makes me wonder just how often this joke has been used in the last 100 years.”

by zbicyclist

The New Yorker Looks at the Environment

A few New Yorker cartoons from just after the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970.

Remember, you can use the link at the left (or here) to submit a CIDU to our kind, generous and handsome editorial staff.

Want to hug more trees? Mark Parisi has several recent Off-the-Mark Arbor Day comics here: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1275651730585573&set=pcb.1275610267256386

by zbicyclist

Saluting (?) the Pharmaceutical Industry

“On April 26, 1954, [70+1 years, -1 day ago] six-year-old Randy Kerr was injected with the Salk vaccine at the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia. By the end of June, an unprecedented 1.8 million people, including hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren, joined him in becoming “polio pioneers.” For the first time, researchers used the double-blind method, now standard, in which neither the patient nor person administering the inoculation knew if it was a vaccine or placebo. Although no one was certain that the vaccine was perfectly safe—in fact, Sabin argued it would cause more cases of polio than it would prevent—there was no shortage of volunteers.”

by zbicyclist

Beetle … juiced?

JMcAndrew sends in a few old Beetle Baileys, noting “Mort Walker was a weird guy.”

Putting some spring in his step?

Why would Sarge have done that? Or was this Beetle’s practical joke?

JMcAndrew: “At some point I’m going to write a thesis on all the homoeroticism in Beetle Bailey. This happens too often to be a coincidence. Here’s a sample.”

JMcAndrew: “I’ve been on somewhat of a Beetle Bailey kick lately but it really is a fascinating comic. This one is some nightmarish body horror on the level of David Cronenberg.”

And then there’s Sarge’s famous gourmand appetite:

JMcAndrew: “A 4000-gallon pot would have a diameter of 96 inches (8 feet) and a height of 140 inches (approximately 11.67 feet).” Would that cook properly?

No tour of Beetle Bailey would be complete without one in which Beetle slacks off:

JMcAndrew commented: “Apparently Beetle Bailey has been murdered and his body has been stuffed inside this filing cabinet. How else could he get inside of it and close the drawer?”